He sat down again and lay the letter aside and picked up a copy of Johnson Digby’s newspaper, The People’s Herald, which his mother sent him every week. He turned the pages absently. “I promise you, little buddy, whether you be a boy or girl, if I get back from this madness, nobody is going to stuff your throat with success and get-ahead-of-the-other-fellow and opportunism and money money money goddamn money and all the rest of that bourgeois shit!”
Worm sat up on his cot. “What the hell are you mumbling to yourself about? You stay in that damn orderly room too much. You flipping your lid or something?”
He looked at Worm and back to the paper.
Worm lay on his cot and closed his eyes.
Solly’s eyes and mind began to focus absent-mindedly on a letter to the Editor of The People’s Herald. But he didn’t really begin to pay attention until the end of the first paragraph.
“We Negro soldiers find ourselves in hostile country in a racist-type undemocratic Army preparing ourselves to go overseas to lay down our lives in a world struggle against Racism and Fascism and for the cause of Freedom and Democracy. This is a bitter pill to swallow.”
Solly smiled and he swallowed hard and his face filled up and all through his shoulders. He looked at Worm again. “Some Negroes have written a letter to The People’s Herald just like our letter.”
Worm sat up quickly and turned to Solly. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Solly began to read aloud, chills racing up and down his back like the Penn Relays.
“We are Negro enlisted men but all of our officers are white and mostly Southern and mostly rabid Negro-haters. Our company commander is Southern to the core, and also of a Nazi mentality. The one thing he has to give Hitler credit for is his handling of the Jews. When we Negro soldiers go into town, we suffer all manner of indignities. We are looked upon with obvious contempt by the white people in the picturesque town of Ebbensville, beaten up with impunity by Ebbensville’s finest and the Military Police. Our company commander intercedes in our behalf by sending us on a ten-mile hike.” His voice began to tremble now.
Worm said, “Kiss my ass in Mississippi!”
“We are voices crying out in a wilderness of hostility and un-democracy, victims of a cruel, sadistic, perverted, and hypocritical hoax. Some of us feel that we do not need to go four or five thousand miles away to do battle with the enemies of Democracy. They are present with us here and now and spitting in our faces . . . ”
“That’s our letter!” Bookworm shouted.
Solly’s voice became a whisper, his throat becoming thick with fear.
“ . . . riding on our backs and breathing down our necks. God only knows why we haven’t taken matters in our own hands, or when we might—”
His body was soaking wet by now, his voice trailed off, his breathing came in big fat gulps. He looked down to the end of the letter and saw the names of
“PRIV. JOSEPH TAYLOR
CPL. SOLOMON SAUNDERS, JR.
PVT. RANDOLPH P. GREER . . .”
He didn’t get any farther. He heard the bugles calling for mess all over the camp and felt the movement of the men hurrying across the floor of the barracks and down the stairs and the noisy metallic sound of mess gear and the thumping of his heartbeat, and—
Worm said, “Great God almighty!”
Solly’s hand shook as he put the paper under his pillow and reached for his mess gear and went with Bookworm toward the stairs. He had been scared about the letters, but till now he had not really let himself look squarely at the consequences. He had made himself believe they’d been thrown into wastebaskets and ignored. He’d almost made himself believe the letters had not been written. He had dreamed the whole thing up, lying up in the post hospital.
“FALL OUT FOR MESS! FALL OUT FOR MESS!” some big-mouthed sergeant yelled from the bottom floor of the barracks.
But now at this moment he was really scared, and he was angry at his fear. Deep aching stabs of emptiness had his belly in an uproar. He wasn’t hungry, he felt the violent need of a bowel movement. His chest felt like a rotten tooth was aching in it. To hell with it, he wasn’t scared! Why the hell should he be scared?
After supper, which he could not eat, he and Worm went back to The People’s Herald. In another column they read the entire story. The Reverend Johnson Digby, Junior, had taken the letter and gone straight to the War Department, demanding an investigation. He’d held a press conference and denounced the treatment of Negro soldiers, North and South. The letter as well as the Reverend’s actions appeared in all of the Negro newspapers and even in a few of the white.
Solly looked up from The People’s Herald and stared at Worm and laughed a sickly kind of laugh.
Worm said, “All we can do now, my bosom boon, is wait till the shit hits the fan.”
Solly’s voice was gruff and thick. “That’s one thing, old buddy, and that ain’t two.” He hated his fear.
The next night Worm brought him a note from Fannie Mae, which said, “I must see you, Solly. Please come over to the Post Exchange.” He went to see her, needing to see her, wondering what it was she wanted.
When he reached her counter she looked up at him and away, and said quickly, “Will you ride into town with me tonight? There’s something I must talk to you about.”
Suddenly his heart exploded in his chest.
“I can’t be caught in town again without a pass.” All day long he had waited for the bomb to fall. Every time Captain Rutherford came into the orderly room, Solly thought, this is it—this is it. He thought, maybe he’s playing cat and mouse. He knows all about the letters. Why doesn’t he say so and get the battle started? But the day had passed and nothing had happened. And now she had another kind of bomb to drop. He thought of the night they made their love together.
She looked up at his anxious guilty face again with her large wide black eyes. Her curving mouth said, “Get one then.” Like a captain giving orders. “You have plenty of time. It’s an hour and a half before we close.”
He tried to read the message in her face. Was it more bad news she had for him? When trouble comes it stays a month of Sundays. “All right, Fannie Mae.”
She said, “Thank you, Solly.” And turned away from him to wait on another homesick soldier.
It took him about forty-five minutes to track down Lieutenant Samuels, who signed his pass and told him he’d better be back by reveille.
All the way into town he wanted to ask her what it was she wanted, but he was scared of her answer. It could not be what he thought it was. It couldn’t be that she was pregnant. It had better not be, lover boy. She wouldn’t look so happy about it, would she? And triumphant? Well, whatever it was, she would tell him when she was good and ready. Maybe she intended to wait until she got him home. And then he began to worry about her parents. Had she told them he was married? How could he face them without knowing? And if he knew they knew, he could never face them.
When they reached the colored section his stomach knew a crazy giddy kind of panic. He said, “Your mother and father—do they? I mean—how can I—?”
She laughed. “Don’t worry, darling. We’re going to Sally Anne’s.”
He said, “Oh—” And felt a great relief. But then he thought, so Sally Anne is in on it too. Why don’t we just publish it in The Black Dispatch and let the whole world know about it?
She said, “Sallie Anne and her family are out of town for the week end. She let me use her place this evening.”
He said, “Oh—” Relax, you fool, and let whatever happens happen.
When they reached Sally Anne’s, she fixed knickknacks and highballs, while he sat with his neck on the block, waiting for Madame Guillotine. Fannie Mae gave him a drink and came and sat beside him on the sofa and held her own drink out to him.
“Here’s to you and me and freedom.”
“And to friendship.” What was she so glad about? You’d think the war had ended and she was the general who had won the
final victory.
She took a swallow from her drink and put the glass on the coffee table and turned to him, and he thought, here it is, and his stomach did a somersault. Here it is. And you will never be the same.
“I’m so proud I could burst wide open.” Her face was so aglow with beauty it made his stomach hurt. He felt like he was sinking in a whirlpool of her beauty and he wanted to grab hold of something before it was too late. Save me from sinking down. How could she be proud she was pregnant? Maybe she thought if she were with his child, he would leave his wife and marry her. It was a hell of a bitter joke, and he laughed and she said, “What’s the matter?”
He was the last of the great goddamn baby-makers.
He said, “What are you so happy about?”
She said, “I’m proud of you and Worm and all the rest of them, and especially you, because Worm told me you wrote the letter, but he didn’t have to tell me. I knew it when I read it in The Courier. That’s why I had to see you tonight, to tell you, no matter how we feel about each other, I mean even if we never see each other again, I love you and I’m proud of you.”
His heart cried out for joy. He laughed and took her in his arms and forgot himself completely. His hand moved up and down her back. For a second she forgot herself and then she moved away from him.
She shook her head. “No. We’re not here for that.” She got up and sat in a chair.
Maybe it was the other thing after all. Maybe this was just a build-up to the corniest dialogue in the world. The oldest script. “Do me a favor,” he said. “Tell me—why are we here?” Is this the way we build to the climax? And now—the moment of truth. And he was sweating everywhere. The Army on the one hand and Fannie Mae on the other. He’d get both hands chopped off up to his neck. All because he let his emotions get the best of him.
She laughed. “Just to talk, sweetheart. Just to make sure we remember each other as friends—deep friends.” She took another swallow of her drink. “I just felt—I mean I was so proud of you—I don’t know—maybe I shouldn’t’ve bothered you about coming into town.”
He said, “Is this all you really wanted?”
She said, “Yes, friendship. Is that too much to ask? Do I mean so little to you? Do you feel your time is being wasted?” He heard the war-tone in her voice.
“No—doll baby.” He got up and moved toward her.
She shook her head. “Just talk. And enjoy each other’s friendship for the last time. That’s all.” He sat back down.
She took another swallow. “I can never drink more than one of these things. I felt so proud when I read your letter in the paper. It was almost as if I had something to do with it my own self. I know she’s proud of you. Mrs. Saunders. She’s a great woman.”
Solly poured himself another drink and took a long swig and felt it hard and deep in his stomach, thinking Millie doesn’t even know it happened. She doesn’t read the colored papers. My wife. And if she did know, she would raise hell about it. She would think me stupid. And she would be absolutely right. It was stupid. I am stupid. Past present future stupid. He stared at Fannie, saying nothing.
She had finished with her first drink and poured herself another. She held it toward him. “To our everlasting friendship, darling.”
“To our everlasting friendship, darling.”
She said, “Ten years from now I’ll be a dried-up old-maid schoolteacher.”
“You’ll get married,” he said. “Any intelligent man in his right mind would jump at the chance to marry you.”
“I don’t want any man. There’s only one man for me and he’s already spoken for and taken.” She put the glass to her curving mouth and took a long gulp this time and she stared at him with hatred. “You’re doggone right I’ll get married. Don’t you patronize me, Solomon Saunders, Junior. You think you’re the only pebble on the beach, you got another thought coming to you. You—” She changed moods again midstream. “Solly, I understand—it’s not your fault. I don’t want you to despise me. I even know why you fell in love with me. Like you say, you were lonesome and I reminded you of her. Do you have a picture of her? Am I like her in temperament? In outlook? In—in personality? Am I as militant as she is? Am I half as pretty?”
He stared at her and shook his head from side to side.
She stood up and she glared at him. “Oh—so I’m not as good as she is, am I? Is that the reason you don’t love me? I’m not pretty—”
He kept shaking his head.
“You said I reminded you of her. You told me—”
He stood up. “I lied to you.”
She looked up into his eyes with her wide eyes. “You lied to me?” Her curving mouth trembling.
“You are nothing like her. You remind me of everything she isn’t. You’re the greatest woman in the world and I’m a damn fool and I love you.”
Her black eyes asked him questions he could never answer. “I don’t understand.”
“You’re the most beautiful women in the world, the most sensible and sensitive and craziest and maddest, and I shall never forget you a single moment that I live.”
She was in his arms now. She said, “Solly—Solly—Solly! Don’t do this to me, Solly. I can’t stand it! It isn’t fair! It isn’t fair! Don’t be cruel to me, darling!”
He kissed her eyes, he kissed her cheek, he kissed her forever curving lips.
“Damn the fairness,” he said, “and damn the Army and damn me and my ambitions and everything but you.”
She pulled away from him. She said, “Wait a minute. This is not the way I wanted it. Not why I asked you to come with me tonight. Just talk and reaffirm our friendship—this is all I had in mind. Don’t get any ideas.” She sat again in the chair across from him.
He sank down into the sofa. She was absolutely right. “All right. Let’s talk then. I, Solomon Saunders, Junior, assert and hereby affirm that I value your friendship more than any friendship in the world. You’ve had a profound influence on me, and I’ll never be the same. You have an outlook on life I am striving to achieve. You are my alter ego. You could be really truly my better half.”
She sat there staring at him, her face aglow with love and beauty and fulfillment like he was making love to her. She couldn’t stand it—couldn’t stand it! “Stop, Solly, stop! You don’t know what you’re doing to me. You’re sadistic.”
He came and took her in his arms. She said, “No! I don’t want your arms around me. You’re mean and heartless and a liar just to have your way with me this time like the other time, I know you now. You mean nothing you say. You want to make a fool of me—” A hemorrhage of words flooding from her now.
He shouted, “Stop!”
She said, “I love you. Do you love me?”
“Yes! Yes! Yes! It gets us nowhere, but I love you.”
He kissed her eyes her cheeks she went to pieces in his arms. He kissed her nose her open mouth eager for his kisses. “Be tender with me, Solly. Have mercy on me. With you I have no defenses.”
“You can’t mean that. Not you.” She mustn’t mean it.
“Yes, my darling. It’s true, absolutely true. Everything else is false and phony.”
He was speechless. She said, “And do you truly love me?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“Spare me this time. Let me go. Let’s just talk and swear our friendship.”
He said, “All right.” And they sat down on the sofa together.
She said, “I have to get myself together. I shouldn’t’ve taken the second drink. I’m not used to it.” She picked up his glass and took a swallow. “The thing is, darling, don’t ever let them get you down. Whatever happens as a consequence of the letter. This is what I really wanted to say, because I know there will be repercussions. Whatever happens, don’t ever have any regrets about it. It was your real self, the truth of you, the deep things in you coming to the surface. It was the you of you. It was the you I always saw in you. That’s why I love you and I’ll always love you. Not just becaus
e you’re beautiful. But because you demand your dignity and manhood. Manhood is more important than money or promotions. Please remember. Never sacrifice your manhood—never sacrifice your manhood. The one thing they will not stand for is for a black man to be a man. And everything else is worthless if a man can’t be a man. My father has been principal of the public school for twenty years, but to any no-account cracker he is still a boy. They can insult your women in front of your face, and you either grin or hang your head or lose your life.”
He tried to take her in his arms again, and she said shakily, “No—no.” Then she said, “All right, one kiss then. Just one—”
And they kissed and she trembled and felt sweet delicious rivulets run all over her and drip from the middle of her like heated vapor cooling. She must be strong. She must not get confused or him confused. She moved away.
She said, “Maybe when you come back, if you still love me, I mean if you don’t really love your wife—I mean a divorce—I mean, why shouldn’t you?” She hated him for making her say it.
He was shaking his head. She said, “You’re right. I have no pride. I should have waited for you to suggest it, if you wanted to, and besides, I wouldn’t do it anyhow. I couldn’t base my happiness on another woman’s misery. But if you’re ever without a wife—I mean—no, forget about it.”
And Then We Heard the Thunder Page 22